Kiss Tells All About Network Shallowness

TELEVISION

Before last week's controversial episode of Roseanne, ABC aired an advisory warning America that the program ''deals with mature sexual themes and may not be appropriate for young viewers.''

Boy, I'll say. Did you get a load of Becky strutting her stuff in that Hooters-type outfit? And her husband and Darlene's boyfriend arguing about who was better at ''satisfying'' his woman?

Thank you, ABC, for giving us time to cover the eyes and ears of our impressionable young against exposure to such provocative adult material.

I'm kidding, of course. Becky's va-va-voom attire and the snickering guy talk were not the occasion for the parental warning. If they were, we would have seen the same warning before on Roseanne.

No, ABC hauled out the advisory for last week's episode because it dared to show two women kissing - Roseanne and a lesbian played by Mariel Hemingway.

By standards of prime time, where on a typical night you see more flickering tongues than at a reptile exhibit, this was a very modest kiss indeed. At the point of contact, neither set of lips was visible, much less a tongue.

No self-respecting Frenchman would claim that kiss for his country.

This whole absurd imbroglio points up the shallowness and hypocrisy of network television's handling of sexuality.

Considering the virtual blank check it gives to the portrayal of straight sex, the 10-alarm warning over a discreet kiss between two women (one not even a lesbian) is ludicrous beyond words.

The problem with television is not that it deals with sex or murder or incest or any other issue, but that it usually deals with them in a superficial, exploitive or ugly way.

The warning we need to see more often in prime time would go something like this:

''The following program contains mature themes treated in a repugnant and immature manner and isn't appropriate for anyone with a modicum of good taste or half a brain.''

Roseanne handled the lesbian theme with a humor and insight that made it more appropriate for young viewers than shows like Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Melrose Place and Living Single that toy with sex for purely titillative purposes but don't carry warnings.

Which brings us to More Than Friends: The Coming Out of Heidi Leiter, an HBO special airing tonight at 9:45 with replays throughout the month.

It's due to a quirk of scheduling, not some kind of worldwide lesbian conspiracy, that less than a week after the Roseanne episode, HBO is premiering a sensitive drama on the same subject.

The Coming Out of Heidi Leiter is based on the true story of a high-school girl's agonizing decision to come out of the closet by inviting her girlfriend to the senior prom.

This is a discreet, tasteful drama - just one light kiss on the lips between the girls - that plays more like a CBS Schoolbreak Special than it does a fleshy HBO production.

The focus is not lesbian sex (sorry, voyeurs), but rather the bigotry and ostracism visited on the couple by heterosexuals - and the girls' courage in facing up to it.

Other girls start covering up in the locker room when Heidi is there. ''Don't ever ask to borrow my lipstick again,'' one says.

When Heidi (Sabrina Lloyd) and Missy (Kate Anthony) go to a tuxedo-rental shop to be fitted for prom outfits, they are verbally assaulted by yahoos, and Missy later is beaten physically.

The most poignant scene is at the dinner table when Heidi tells her family why her charade must end.

''I've been pretending all my life,'' she says. ''Right now I feel like I'm no one - someone that we've all made up. I can't do it anymore.''

At the conclusion of the half-hour drama we hear from the real Heidi Leiter, a pretty girl with close-cropped hair who seems a bit shy. She explains that she never decided to be gay.

''The only choice I made is not to lie about it - not to restrict my life because some people think there's something wrong with me,'' she says. ''In the kind of world we live in, I believe if two people can find love, they're lucky. I know I am.''

Heidi Leiter is also lucky she's on HBO. On ABC, her life would carry a parental warning.